Richmond Palladium (Daily), Volume 36, Number 150, 8 April 1911 — Page 2

TOKYO FAQE

IPMiLAUDHIUM MOMT (Cop) right. l'JOif. by Anwriccn Eisntoer. Gnat Eriuia Eights Hsen;J )

Til 1 EWCI4E

. RS. KANHIIA Wr'H marrligi) had been one of thosit made In haste end repented at leisure. Great wealth and lt Indulgence hart developed .no worst of Mr. Fanshawe's nature. 1i ho ha.l died largily of hi "cciici b.'ore hla rnlld wti borr. After the shock of It Mn Fanshawe felt that she had almost been born agal:i and Into a world of delightful freedom and power, with no more disturbance, no mora disgust, no moie llarm, and with a fortune to spend as alio pleased. What her little son's fortune would be, after Ita Ion years of aecumulatlon. pa.-iaei' thi dreams of avarice, as I.r. Johnson one wrote of the potentialities of the brewery. At first she felt that she never roul.l love the child that was his; and then the helplessness of the baby, the charm and delight of him so grew and warmed her heart that she was In danger ef apotheosizing her departed husband. Ince his child could not be so altogether lovely and he so altogether wrong. Only In danger, however, for there were times and season when memory rose stanch and faithful and showed her Mr. Fanshawe as he was. Hut Indeed little Frineli was altogether lovely; his voice was music, his smile was sunshine; every morning on waking he seerncd to have come straight from heaven. And anyway, with her freedom, her wealth, and with little Francis, It was heaven here, she used to say. Not quite heaven, though, for she lived In constant fear of something happening lo her darling. If he sneezed. If he shivered. If lie had a pin-prick, she was In a panic, and the Intensity of her embraces at CniM made Utile Francis quit uncomfortable. And then, to he sure, there wss Ellzabeth; sln'ityi a vexation, another crumpled rose-leaf In her bed. For Elizabeth was a rhtld that Mr. Fanshawe had adopted, but without troubling himself to take out legal papers It hud been supposed that he would nuke her his heir; but. then, like Benedict, he !M not know he would live till he v.is maiil.d: and he died without making any provision for Elizabeth. Home people ho were distant relatives of her mother, illt)K li her hi-hnlf. pressed Elizabeth claims tipon M.s. Fanshawe In so unwise tul ihi .iiei.li.rf a manner that Mrs. Fanrhivc refused to listen to them. Give that Bin any porilon of little Francis's propel t? Take her lino the family? What If h had no other home? The people who were so busy in her behalf could give her one! Wha' If she did need core and affection? hhe must hud them where she had a right to look for them! It was none of Mrs. Fanshawe affairs. Clement very surely thought Mr?. Fanshawe ought to take the young girl Into her family; Mrs. Fanshawe very surely thought that she would do nothing of the kind. And It was no affair of Clement's, either. She knew nothing of this ElUtubeth, appearances certainly were against her; and Francis was too per. feet being for aiiy rlk lo him through the t ompunlonshlp of a totally un -. t person. Why let he:' leiniin uuk t? What qonarnse! Why uol let her i . ...aai . tr.knovfn? ; The' (nore people Francis had lo IOM-w Clement Haying? the butter, for li 1 til. Fistula had Ills mother to love, his oid blu-k mummy. Clement himself. Clement, bvlrig his guurdlnn; and ho Mould have to rfi-t along with them For her part, he would never divide her little angei's affections with any others! If ever a child looked like an angel It was litis little Francis, with the blue of hi yes. the gold of his pretty locks, the exquisite dellt acy of his rose-petal skin, the charm of his lovlngness, of all hU dear wuys and manners. - It was a little singular In lien uf Mr Fanshawe' persistent icfiii ti, ir.tir' hfm, that the affection of )'t.' t'lemetit wlio was an old friend ef mil v. Mrs. Fanshawe's trustee and ;.i i ll the guardian of the boy sum;.:i . i I. I'laui'ls a trifle dearer still. !' ' i of hlrt angelhood, there wer t : t - m llttlrt Francis was quite hui'- lie exhibition of a fine streak of t i super would havo alarmed his !' oeedlngly had she not Sveti him l-''i. wly punish himself with several In . u t in, of his tiny flsta upon his own head, while lie exclaimed. "Naughty Franels. iKiuglity Francis!" or else toddle off to t!io corner of the room and hldo his face there against the wall until lie felt sufficiently punished, or occasionally show a, lively recollection of one of his mummy's rhymes: "Before your naughty voice Is heard In angry answer, child, or when You want to say an unkind word, lie still a moment and count ten," and Francis wa of counting, "one, two. five, seven, twenty." was probably quite as effective as the other ways. "There's some-little boys." he said, when brought In from hi walk one day. "who have farvert. Why don't Francis have farvers?" I: ws mmewlut difficult to tell Mm that his father had gone to heaven, because Mrs. Fanshawo had quite a strong notion that he hd gone in & very different direction. "You have Uncle Clement." she Md. tefore she thought. "Hut there's no auntie to htm." Francis vrjed. "N Clement my farver? Ioes he go to heaven when he goes away from her?" . . "Far from It!" cried Clement. "X would like to have Clement for my farver," continued Ftanols. And when Cle.neiit. Inuulglngly assured hin that he would rludly become hl father any day his mother wished, he was perpetually beseeching his mot he.- to wish As for Ck-nienr, he had been in love with F.nny FaMihnw ever sine; the day he first saw her In her black bonnet; when he thought jho looked too much like a breathing beauty to be allowed to remain sue! e. sutTorlnr taint as she appeared. Hut Fanny Fanshawe had been too completely wrapped jls her little son to give Clement a second thought as a lover. Why In the orld should the marry the best man alive, having scaped from such a cruel bondage, as she had? She had thought Mr. Fanhawe had not his peer when h married him, and till she discovered his cruel, tyranny. Clement was all well enough Just now; but married, who could say? And anyway, while she had little Francis's dear arms about her. and ill head on her shoulder, his sweet kisses for her own, she wanted bo further affection. Tcrhap there was no time In his waking when Francis seemed so rweet and dear as when, arrayed In his little white nightgown, he knelt at his mother's knee for hla bed-ttnm prayer, his great blue yea lifted and rapturous an If he saw the heavenly choir. lie understood very well that he came front heaven, and had a Heavenly Father there; he somewhat con-

TXVCN

fued the Lord with his Fanshawe father, and he felt that he loved that father very much; hut these esoterl? emotions never hindered his during his dar petition with tho words. "And please make Clement my farver, too. Amen." And as most of his wishes were granted as soon as expressed, little Francis was a firm believer in prayer; he spoke with assurance of the time when Clement would be his father, since, with him, it was to ask and to have, and he made his 11 1 1 1 r- ascriptions of prayer and praise twenty times a day. "Did you ever know a child so devoted?" his mother would ask with tears In her eyes those eyes that looked. when suffused, liko liquid sapphires. "Oh. he is so perfect. Clement, that I am afraid he can't be long here. Oh, what should I do? Wha shouid I do?" "What would any of us do?" Clement answered. , "You do love him. don't you, Clement?" "I should love him better if his mother were my wlfo," said Clement What makes you so silly!" she cried. They were standing before on of the long mirrors, as It chanced, and he caught her hand and turned her about, facing it. "That makes me!" he said, as they looked at tho rosy, golden-haired woman all blushes and smiles and dimples at the moment. 'You really ought to be ashamed to trouble mo so," she said. "We aro very well as we are." And probably if she had looked the way her words sounded, he

" 'He shall never get out of my sight, or yours, Clement, as long as he lives.' "

would have gono and troubled her no more. "But wo might be better." "No, no. I am afraid of change. There Is the inevitablo change of Francis growing older" "And needing a father to look out for him." "Ills guardian can do that." she cried .triumphantly. "It is his duty." Hut one day Francis peered outside the garden gate it was alluring there. Very presently he ran away. His lip trembled, and his great blue eyes melted when his mother told him of her anxiety and trouble; but by and by outdoors again was tempting enough to triumph over virtue, and Francis ran away again. It was or. one of these escapades that Clement can e across a little barefoot urchin, hatless and coat lost-, and he took hipi by his yellow curls, as I'allas did Achilles, bending his face back, and then caught him u. in his arms. "I didn't runned away. Clement." he exclaimed. "I walked, and the little boy hadn't no shoe, and n- coat, and he hadn't no hat, and so I glved him mine, you know.' "I know." raid Clemen.. "And I know, too, that If you had caught your death, without your coat, your mother would have caught he.'s. You'll break her heart yet. young man." "WIU It hurt her? Will she cry?" 'If your mother went away from you and never came back, would that hurt you?" "Oh. yes! Oh. yes!" sighed Francis, catching his breath. "Then If you go away from her and never come back, would it hurt you, do you think?" That night In his prayer little Francla besought the heavenly powers to keep him from running away and breaking his mother's heart: and he was so entirely sweet and trusting that his mother couldn't help catching and kissing him In tne mlij.it of it. "Buddy Scott has a sister." Francis announced on day on comicg in from hi wall:. "Can't I have a bister?" "There Is Elizabeth." said Clement under his breath. "Fanny, why not le: me bring Elizabeth here for a call? She Is a nice child. She ! really a nice child. She would

love Francis very much. And he will need all the love he can have as the years go." "How perfectly preposterous. Clement!' "Well, the love of an elder sister isn't a half bad thing to have." "As if I couldn't supply all that myself!" she said. "Are you eleven years old as Elizabeth Is? Can you be full of gratitude to the boy for the blessing of a home and comfort undreamed of, A3 she would be" "It's no sort of use your going on this way. I won't listen. I don't want to remember that there Is such a person as Elizabeth. And I won't take her into my family, and that settles It!" "The only fault you have. Fanny, Is your fee, lug about Elizabeth; your hostility to her because her second cous!iu troubled you so with what they thought her rights your inhumanity to that homeless child, who has to spend even her vacations either at a boarding- school or with these underbred, coarso relatives." "Oh. I don't pose for all the virtues." "I can't understand your position." "Don't try," twisting one of Francis's curls around her Anger and humming a

tune lnd:frrently. as If she were not retting ;iiore and more angry. "But the case Isn't as If the little girl hadn't some right, some equity here. She was led to expect it, or, rather, her people were, years ago. She needs affection, card and oversight. Without a happy home be hind her It is not Impossible that she may go wrong. But loving you and Franc's, and perhaps me" Tshaw! This Isn't c hospital or a reformatory. And so for taking this Elizabeth into it fo:- fear she may go wrong if I don't that would be a pretty sort of companion for Francis! I simply won't!" Mrs. Fanshawe had gone out to dinner one night with Clement, leaving little Francis composed for the night in his bed, after having expressed tho wish that tiod and the angels would go away and let his mother stay. Sho looked in again before going down, and hung a moment yearningly over his rosy sleep, and wondered in what far land of dreams his lovely little spirit wandered. And then she gave a cheery word to the oid mammy who sat In the next room, and ran down to give Clement a happy ouarter of an hour while fitting besida her in the carriage. "I don't know." she. said, as the carriage-door elammsd, "that I wouldn't rather stay at home and sit beside his bed than dire with the Queen." "I see that child's finish at the hands of a doting mother," said Clement. "It was rather late when they returned, and she threw off her cloak and ran up for a look at Francis asleep, and to. kneel a moment or two for her nightly prayer at his eide. There was no Francis there! The bed was tumbled, a sheet dragged on the floor toward the balcony window, which was wide open. Mrs. Far.shawt's shrink brought Clement back from the vestibule, leaping up three steps at a time, and called nurse and governess and maid from the:r slumbers, and a wild search of the house was made instantly tram top to the bot-

tom. and then the yard, the street, the areas adjoining, with calls and cries and adjurations. It was remembered that Francis had been known to walk in his sleephe might have done so now. But search and outcry were quite In vain. There was no more sleep for any one that night; the nurse had all that was doming to her In the nap she took while little Francis was being stolen. "Oh, my darling, my darling boy!" Mrs. Fanshawe cried again and again. "Where are you! I know you are in a fever of fear! Oh, I hope they will be kind to him they can't help being kind to him, can they, Clement? And he so lovely: Hut. oh! I don't know if they were such fiends as to steal him from his mother, they may be fiends enough to abuse hire. Oh, Clement, I shall go mad! I shall go mad!" Before the morning following that terrible night, Clement had secured detectives, and ha himself forsook ail business and devoted every instant to the search for Francis. "I will not leave a stone unturned," he said. "And he loved you. Clement. Oh. he loved every one! liis little loving heart

oh, how It is aching now! My little boy, my poor little boy! Oh, if you care for me Clement, if you love me at all, you will find Francis!" "I will find littl Francis if he Is anywhere on earth.' said Clement. "Not because I love you. but because I love him.' In the days that dragged their length along Clement and the detectives sought Francis through the slums and evil regions, and had broadsides posted along the streets offering great rewards. If perchance they thought they had a clue, presently It came to nothing. "Man p'lnts," said old mammy through her tears, "but God dis'p'ints!" Mrs. Fanshawe herself, in a burning fever of eagerness, haunted the alleys where ragged children begged broken food at the back doors of rich houres. What if the kidnappers should make Francis do such work? Or what if he lay drowned at the end of some one of the wharves; what If he were to grow up and be like one of these terrible boys of the street? "Oh. what a little way separates us from them!" she cried. A few dollars, more or less, and a. child has the chance to be an angel, and another to be a fiend! Oh, it 13 the work of fiends to steal my child. But he never can become like those creatures, can he, Clement? It seems to me, oh, it seems to me, I could bear it better if I knew he wera Just dead." But alive and suffering without me without you oh, why do I live myself! Why don't I die and go where my baby has gone!" "It is bad enough to lose him," said Clement. "But if I were to lose you " "Oh. don't talk about me! Don't speak of such things. It is disgraceful. There's no time for talking of oarselvos. There isn't any future; there is nothing In the world, if we don't find Francis." Mrs. Fanshawe had grown thin with her troubles, she was white as a ghost, and he.r eyes glittered like those of one possessed. "You musn't take It so serious'.y, dear," said Clement. "There is hardly one chance in a. million that wa shal! not recover

him " "But when oh, when! It Is breaking my heart to think what may be happening to him this minute!" hiding her face in the hands she had wrung till they ached.

"Try not to think of that, dear." "Not to think of it! You might as well tell me not to breathe! Oh, I can't think of anything else! I can't eat, I can't sleep,( for the horror of it!" One morning Clement came In with a quicker step than usual. "Oh," cried Mrs. Fanshawe, "have you something to tell me? x snail aie or mis suspense: "And I would, too," said Clement, "If I had not heard from the kidnappers." "The kidnappers! Then he Is alive! He Is alive!" "Very much so. But he will not be returned except after the deposit of half your fortune." "Oh, they may have the whole of it! The whole! If they only give me back Francis!" "I think we will have Francis back without giving them any of it." "Oh, but you can't mean to let money weigh in a case of life and death like this! Oh, Clement, promise them everything, give them everything! If it takes everything!" Her eyes were biazing. her cheeks burning, her hands shaking, her heart was bounding to suffocation. "I can take care of my own boy!" she cried. "If It comes to that, I can take boarders I I Y'ou can take care of me, Clement!" "I nave asked you to let me do that before." "Oh, but Clement It's no time for nonsense!" "There's no nonsense about It, Fanny." "But I tell you we are wasting time! Heply to those creatures please at once that they may have all they ask only give me back my boy. lion't look at me that way! If If you loved me, you wouldn't want me kept in this suspense a day, an hour. Oh. if you don't get him for me while you can, I shall hate you!" , "If it isn't a time to talk of love, it isn't a time to talk of hate." saii Clement. "You can't hate rne if you try." And he loved her none the less in her ecstacy of misery and ioy. "Hut since you are so eager to re

ward those who stole your boy, what reward am I to have who bring him back te you?" "Oh, anything, everything, Clement, Only bring him! I am In torment!" "li! I could comfort you. dear" "There Isn't any comfort." she said, dashing away her tears with both her trembling hands. "Oh, why caJi't I know if he la well if he" "You may be sure those that have been holding him for a big sum of money are not letting any harm come to him." "Oh, how can you tell!" "Because I know who they are. Some distant kinsfolk of Elizabeth live In town" "Oh, Elizabeth! Am I never to hear the last of her?" "I have been paying Elizabeth's way myself . In her boarding school; and, going the other day to settle a bill, she happened to remark that she wouldn't be an expense to me much longer, for she had heard her mother's cousin saying that she was soon to have her rights in a big fortune. Are you listening, Fanny?" "Oh, what do I care for Elizabeth?" she exedaimed as if her thoughts were far away. "You will care a great deal about her presently. Well, you know the detective thought the wretches had taken Francis out of town, but that I was' not so aure of It What she said set me thinking. I asked her before long if she had ever seen little Francis on his walks, and she said she had, with an old colored woman, and ahe said further that there was a little boy visiting at her mother's cousin's house that looked rather like him. I expressed some proper surprise, and asked her to take the little boy out for a walk and bring him to Mr. Fanshawe's and then we cbuld see how much he really resembled Francis, furthermore telling her to do U very privately, as I wouldn't like her mother's cousin to know about It till afterward, and giving her money to take a car when they were around the corner, and later a cab. My word Is law to Elizabeth; she. thinks I am Premier John and the Grand Llama together. Fortunately, she had forgotten a lesson book at her mother's cousins. That was yesterday. I haven't spoken of it before except to say that I was very hopeful for fear of the waiting being too much for you. But somehow now Z am expecting something every moment:" "Oh, Clement; how good you are. What should I do without you!" "I don't like to contemplate such a possibility," said Clement. "When Francis comes home Oh. Clement, you shall have your way." she exclaimed, the tears that poured over he face, illuminated by the smile, the blush, the glance. "And If he enever comes?" "Then I shall need you all the wore"--And just then came the sound of commotion In the hall, exclamations, outcries, laughter, and a wild cry from old mammy, and the heavy portieres parted, and 'ittle girl stood there timidly looking trorn one to another, and Francis ran with a scream of joy to his mother, who screamed, too, ' and then straightway fainted. But Mrs. Fanshawe's happiness was to extreme to let her stay long unconscious. All the love beating wildly on heart and nerve called her back to life and Joy before Clement had time to get In any fine work of salts and cologne. "Oh! Is it really true?" she said. "1 am not dreaming?" "I hope not," said Clement. "For you gave me to understand a short time ago, and In quite a shameless yay. that you would marry me. And I can't consent to think that a dream." "Then It is true. And my darling boy is safe, my own dear chiiu, my treasure. JMe shall never go out of my sight, or of yours,; Clement, as long as he lives." And then Mrs. Fanshawe pushed back the fallen and drenched hair and walked across the room. "And this is Elizabeth?" she asked, embracing the bewildered little girl- "Elizabeth,'' she sad, "would you like to come and live with me and Mr. Clement, and rhare everything with Francis whole I live and after I die? Y'ou have brought me back my little son, and now I have a little daughter, too. Can't you have their name changed to Clement, too? I don't think we'll prosecute any one; It might be emharassing to Elizabeth, and they took auca good care of Francis." That," said Clement, "is something to consider. But I don't think I would give them a present"'

IPsiIlI.

V,,